MODELING OF EMPLOYMENT TRENDS IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The employment rate has been rising since 2013 in EU countries. In the Europe 2020 Strategy, the EU set the target of reaching an employment rate of 75 %. Individual EU countries have also set national targets. The national target of the Slovak Republic is 72 % and the Czech Republic is 75 %. The employment rate indicator is defined in the Europe 2020 Strategy as the proportion of the population aged 20-64 employed in the total population of the same age group. Based on the available quarterly data on the number of active population (AP) and the number of employed (EP) in Slovakia and the Czech Republic over the last 20 years, we will predict the absolute values (in thousands of persons) of these indicators by 2022. Adaptive time series smoothing methods, specifically exponential smoothing methods, are particularly suitable for this type of data. The Holt-Winters method proved to be suitable for this type of data, in the form of both additive and multiplicative models. We used SAS software, namely SAS/ETC module. The main aim of the analysis was to find out whether the countries surveyed would meet the set targets in the Europe 2020 employment Strategy by the set deadline.